


Sirens

by thegraytigress



Series: Not Us [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Hurt Natasha Romanov, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 10:32:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18809395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegraytigress/pseuds/thegraytigress
Summary: A close call while on the run from Ross shakes Steve to his core.  Natasha does everything she can to save him.





	Sirens

**Author's Note:**

> This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended. Please don't repost this story to other archives or websites.
> 
>  **RATING:** E (for language, violence, adult situations)
> 
>  **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** So this is the first of a series of Steve/Natasha fics that are going to run the length of CA:CW all the way through Avengers: Endgame. I'm not sure how many there will be. Five or six? I'm not going to be rewriting the movies, just wedging some Romanogers themed fics in some places where I can, leading up to, you know, an appropriate ending :-)
> 
> Just an upfront warning: this series is dark and will contain some potentially triggering material. Read at your own discretion. I'll be adding warnings specific to the stories as I post them, but just so you know. Also, I'm really not interested in discussing opinions on CA:CW or Endgame. We all think what we think and that's cool, but no need to hash it out in the comments :-D These stories are from Steve's and Nat's POVs, so their takes on certain events will naturally be explored. Doesn't mean I'm anti-anything, and it doesn't mean the other side of the story's not going to get told. You guys who know me know that and that I hope to give things a fair shake.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading!

They barely get away.

Natasha feels like she should be used to this by now.  Before going on the run, she certainly lived a dangerous life.  As a spy first for the Red Room and then for SHIELD, she’s had plenty of close calls where she’s been lucky to escape with her life, let alone get the mission done.  From botched assassinations to failed assaults to hardly constrained pandemonium in the place of neat extraction with whatever prize she was sent to acquire safely in hand, she’s run the gamut of surviving by sheer dumb luck and the skin of her teeth.  Clint joked to her once that she’s more a cat than a spider, a cat with her nine lives.  Constantly landing on her feet and slipping into the shadows and all that.  Sly and lithe and silent.  Too fast and clever to be caught.

She’s not feeling fast or clever as she staggers into the hotel room.  Steve’s right behind her, and the second they cross the threshold, he’s closing the door tight and practically throwing his weight into it.  She grimaces, squinting through the heavy shadows to see him.  He puts a finger to his lips to silence her, as if she’ll risk speaking.  She knows better.  This isn’t her first rodeo.  On top of that, she can’t catch her breath, so saying anything right now seems like a waste of air she doesn’t have.

Steve’s not paying attention to her anyway.  He’s leaning onto the door, blue eyes narrowed and distant as he listens.  There isn’t much.  The hiss of rain on the tin roof of this crappy, dilapidated hotel in the middle of the slums of Lagos.  There’s probably some irony somewhere in all of this that they’re hiding here, not too far from the last mission the Avengers ran together as a team.  The mission that ended disastrously and plunged them all into disagreement.  The one that effectively resulted in the fall of the team.  The one that changed everything.

Needless to say, that’s added misery she doesn’t want to think about right now.  So she doesn’t, focusing anew on their surroundings.  It’s not as easy as it used to be to compartmentalize, particularly when her ribs are killing her and her head’s pounding.  Still, she can hear a couple people talking in the room next to them.  It’s unsurprisingly loud through the paper thin walls of this box of a place.  There’s traffic on the street below, though not too much since it’s pretty late at night.  None of it seems out of the ordinary, but she has to defer to Steve.  Thanks to the serum, he can hear significantly more than she can even with her training and experienced senses.  She’s learned to trust that – and him – explicitly.

After an excruciatingly long, motionless moment, he relaxes.  It’s pretty imperceptible.  He never relaxes nowadays (not that he did much before, but occasionally there was a sassy joke or a hard-won smile or even a laugh).  To be honest, after the disaster in Siberia (of which she still only knows the basic details – he won’t tell her the rest), he’s been so… _troubled._   Tense.  A little defeated and a great deal uncertain.  He’s still fighting, still leading what remains of their team (which isn’t much.  Just Sam and her and sometimes Wanda, but Wanda’s trying to lie low and establish something with Vision).  He’s been deeply shaken, though.  Over the last few months, she’s noticed it more and more.  A couple years back, before SHIELD went down, she wouldn’t have cared.  They were barely even friends, partners at times and not much else.  He was fun to tease, fun to flirt with (flustered was a good look on that wholesome, handsome face), fun to break in a little.  Back then he knew very little about the future, just newly restored from his long slumber in the ice off the coast of Greenland, and she playfully used that to her advantage.  Sure, he’s seen the worst of humanity in ways even she hasn’t.  He lived through World War II, fought Nazis, lost his best friend to the hell of combat, sacrificed himself to prevent a plane full of HYDRA bombs from destroying the east coast of the United States.  But he was green, naïve in a lot of ways, and easy to torment.

Not that she enjoyed tormenting him (well, again, embarrassment was good on him, a blush that burned hot on that fair face and went _all the way_ down his chest.  At least in her dreams it did), but it was a way to keep some distance.  Truth be told, of all the Avengers, Captain America was the only one who intimidated her.  Her impromptu role on that newly formed team came as a shock to her.  She’s followed orders, first from the Red Room and then from SHIELD, her whole life.  Deep down inside, underneath all the personalities she’s assumed over the years in her job and the lies she’s told (especially the ones she’s told herself), she’s often wondered if she even _exists_ without the orders.  So when Nick Fury told her to recruit Bruce Banner for the Avengers Initiative and then assist this hardly-functional team of superheroes, she did it.  She never expected it to last.  She never expected that she’d have a permanent place in their ranks.  And she never expected to be fighting alongside someone as fundamentally _good_ as Steve Rogers.  The legends and tales of Captain America’s heroics really pale in comparison to seeing it firsthand, not because they live up to the hype and unwavering morality, but because they _don’t_ in a way.  Captain America is (maybe _was_ now, sadly) always framed as this self-righteous symbol of American patriotic ideals, but Steve Rogers?  He’s just a young man from Brooklyn who grew up sick and poor and trying to do the right thing no matter what.  Trying to protect people.  Trying to hold true to what he knows is fair and just (and he’s right almost every time).  Trying to be a _good_ man and succeeding more than anyone else can.

She thought, with her loose morals and bloodstained past, she had no place next to that.

So, frankly, in those early days Captain America scared the hell out of her.  Shook her to her core.  Coming from a world of spies and stealth, fighting next to a guy who was basically the complete opposite was completely unsettling.  And when Steve came to work for SHIELD…  Well, she got why.  The Avengers weren’t much of a thing yet, and he needed a purpose in a world he hardly recognized, and it wasn’t like Captain America could just go out and get a job.  He’s a soldier and a war hero.  SHIELD was truly the best place for him (well, it seemed so at the time, before they discovered SHIELD was infested with HYDRA). Still, and this was pretty, but it felt just a bit like he was invading her territory.  Hence she kept distance between them, kept herself detached and hidden behind easy smiles and teasing and utter excellency in the field.

That didn’t last.  SHIELD falling made them friends.  The Avengers reforming and assuming the place of the world’s best defense against evil brought them even closer.  The first fracture after Ultron, when Tony stepped down and Steve was left picking up the mess in the wake of an international disaster that was absolutely their fault, took their relationship far deeper.  Now Natasha wasn’t just his teammate and ally.  She was his second in command, his confidante.  Somewhere during all that she grew closer to him than to anyone else, even to Clint.  And when everything fell apart just a couple months back…  She tried to stop it from happening.  Keeping this team, this _family_ to which she inexplicably belonged… Keeping everything and everyone together was her only concern.  She was a fool to think Tony’s approach would work, that Steve would compromise what he knew was right when there was so much on the line.  She thought for just a bit that if she signed the Accords, if she went that way and sacrificed her own rights and views to keep things stable, Steve would follow.  It’d work out.  It’d be fine, and they’d be together.

She sees now that that never would have happened.  She’s used to manipulating and being manipulated, but Steve isn’t.  She’s used to being a weapon, a cog in someone else’s agenda or a tool in a third party’s arsenal, but Steve’s not and never will be.  That’s part of what makes him Captain America; the fact that he stands for what’s right no matter the cost to himself.

And that cost him everything.

So all of this, SHIELD collapsing and the Avengers fracturing and their small group being branded criminals and turned into fugitives with the United States government fucking hunting them like animals…  All of this has really changed him.  He can’t hide that from her, even though he’s tried.  He’s tried hard, bottling things up behind the stoic exterior of the world’s greatest soldier, but their relationship has grown far beyond what it was.  Considering the role she played in everything that happened in Germany with Barnes, she expected Steve’s anger or even his hatred.  She was candid with him when they reunited after it all about what she did to help Tony.  She doesn’t regret it.  On this side of the misery, she can see that they were all simply acting out of a need to do what was right.  So often betrayed by the institutions he was trying to serve, Steve wanted to protect the Avengers’ rights and then to protect Barnes.  Burdened by guilt for his past mistakes, Stark wanted to create oversight that would help prevent future calamity.  Sam and Clint and Wanda were each driven by their own emotions and sense of duty.  Vision and even T’Challa were.  Herself.  God, she was so desperate to maintain her bearings in an increasingly violent and complex world that she turned on the only person she’s trusted in forever.

Steve promptly told her there was nothing to forgive, and they’ve never talked about it again.

In retrospect, she would have never chosen Tony’s side.  Stark shut down and stopped listening almost immediately, and while she herself supported the concept of oversight, she didn’t at all care for his methods.  He escalated, and Steve escalated, and everything went to hell, and whatever happened between him and Steve in Russia…  Well, she has a pretty good idea, despite Steve’s silence.  Tony found out Barnes murdered his parents when he was a brainwashed and tortured HYDRA assassin.  She’s suspected that ever since she and Steve were subjected to the epic tale HYDRA’s evil misdeeds in the bunker in New Jersey.  She’s not sure if Steve made the connection, and she never had the guts to tell him because he was so frantic to find his friend and she didn’t want to hurt him more than he was already hurting.  Obviously Tony figured Steve must have known, and Tony being Tony lost his cool, and things clearly reached their boiling point.  When she reunited with Steve after Steve got Barnes help (he wouldn’t tell her where he took him or what was happening with this either, but it also wears on him), the injuries were evident, even a few days removed.  Burns that looked disturbingly like something Iron Man’s repulsor canons can make.  Bruises and broken ribs and internal damage that only a battle with an equally powerful opponent can cause.  Iron Man versus Captain America.  He and Tony came to blows, _badly_ hurting each other, and the signs of it, emotionally as much as physically, were all over him.

The injuries have long since healed in the past months, but the guilt and grief Steve’s been carrying with him are fresh and undeniable.  So is the weight on his shoulders, the weight of the team fracturing and his battered friendship with Tony and Barnes’ situation.  The one thing he hasn’t been carrying all this time is his shield.  She hasn’t asked what’s happened to it, and he hasn’t offered, but it’s pretty obvious that Captain America as he was, as he’s been since waking up in the future…  That Captain America is gone. 

This is what’s left.  The man before her, who doesn’t look much like he used to even a couple months back, who dyed his uniform black and ripped off the bright star on its chest and all the Avengers insignia to better fit in with a life as a nomad and fugitive.  Who grew a beard (watching that happen was fairly shocking – Natasha never pictured him with a beard before, and though the circumstances are terrible, she has to admit it’s a _really_ good look on him) to help distance himself from the clean-cut image he used to have.  And who’s struggling to calm down in the wake of this latest near-death experience.  Or near-capture experience for him.  It’s becoming frighteningly obvious that that’s what Ross wants, maybe what he’s wanted all along.  Maybe the Secretary of State tricked Tony into thinking the Accords are about meaningful oversight and support, but after everything, the man has showed his true colors.  He’s after the super soldier serum.  He wanted Steve under his wing, maybe down in that goddamn Raft prison as his unwilling test subject.  Ross has always been obsessed with recreating the super soldier program; that’s what led to the creation of the Hulk.  Natasha doesn’t know if the bastard planned on controlling Steve via the Accords or if he intended to force a situation like this all along, with Steve marked a criminal and ripe for the taking.  It doesn’t really matter.  Ross is after him, and he’s using all the resources he has (legal and otherwise) to see him arrested.  Added on top of that is the fact that Steve broke into the Raft and rescued their friends and his teammates.  That surely pissed Ross off even further.  Even in this short time, the guy has chased them from Africa to Europe and then back to Africa again, flushed them from country to country.  There are bounties on their heads.  And there are kill orders out there for her, for Sam and Wanda.  But not for Steve.

Ross wants Steve alive.

Which has brought them to here and now, to Steve listening for any sign of the mercenaries who attacked them while they were trying to infiltrate and shut down an illegal weapons ring operating out of Lagos.  Just as the fight got serious (though nothing she, Sam, and Steve couldn’t handle), the mercenaries (militant ops from Congo, she thought) swarmed the warehouse and flushed them out into the open.  From there it was a wild, chaotic chase through the city.  She and Steve were separated from Sam, which was all kinds of terrifying.  Thankfully most of the bad guys followed them rather than Sam, who veered off one way into the dark roads of Lagos’ slums while Steve and she ran another.  The city is dense and crowded even this late at night, and shaking their pursuers while avoiding civilian casualties was tough.  They almost didn’t.  While racing through a street party of some sort, Natasha was clipped by a bullet.  These mercenary bastards had no qualms about firing into a crowd, and she had slowed down to try and get people out of the way, and the next thing she knew she was on the ground, head and chest in agony and bleeding.  The bad guys grabbed her, attacked her, but before they could really do anything, just as she laid there and prepared for capture or worse and hated herself for letting herself be used against Steve like that…

Steve came.  Natasha’s never seen him fight like he did then.  Usually he pulls his punches against normal people, even if they’re using deadly force against him.  With the serum, he can deal lethal damage to an average human without trying.  But he didn’t hold back this time.  In seconds, he took down all of them, the eight or nine guys who were holding her down plus the others shooting into the crowd.  She was dizzy and shocked to see their attackers bleeding on the street.  Most looked dead, necks snapped or chests crushed.  It was incredible, just how fast and powerful Steve was.  Steve just scooped her up in his arms and took off.

And that brought them here, to this shitty brothel in the middle of the slums with the two of them desperately listening for any sign of danger.  There were more mercs in the fight than the group chasing them.  The guys came with weapons and equipment to take down a super soldier; she saw the size of their guns, the goddamn huge, armored _truck_ they had brought to keep Steve contained should they catch him.  They were prepared, which means this isn’t the usual rabble trying to take advantage of the ridiculously large bounty Ross is offering.  Which means the two of them are not safe.

They’re never safe anymore.

But there’s not much she can do about it.  Standing proves to be too much for her pounding head, and she slumps against the wall.  Steve’s rushing across the room to catch her.  “Nat,” he whispers.  The shadows swing around her, the vertigo utterly awful, and she leans unabashedly into him.  A few years ago, when they were on the run from SHIELD (on the run the first time – how the hell does this stuff happen?), she would have balked at the idea of seeking support from anyone, let alone him.  Now…  “Nat, can you look at me?”

Before she can even try, a siren wails in the distance.  Steve goes stiff, wrapping his arms around her tight and tugging them both into the shadows of the corner of the room.  Natasha squeezes her eyes shut in fear, shame never even registering as she clutches onto him and listens.  The siren is getting closer.  _Shit._   Steve’s barely breathing, turning them slightly to keep her behind him as he strains and leans over to the room’s one window.  He’s peering through the crud-covered glass, looking down onto the streets below.  The shrill blaring becomes louder and louder.  _They’re coming._ It doesn’t matter who.  The Nigerian government.  The US military.  More mercenaries and thugs seeking a big score.  _They’re coming!_

Time slows to a crawl.  The two of them stand there, frozen in fear and barely breathing with Natasha tucked to Steve’s chest and Steve trying to watch out the one window, for what feels like forever.  The sirens echo down the street, so shrill, terrible and deafening and practically shaking this horrible little cell of a room.  But then they go on, passing them, fading into the distance.  Steve finally breathes.  “Jesus,” he whispers.  He lets go of her for just a second, sneaking along the dilapidated wall with its moldy wall-paper to look more carefully out of the window.

In that second, she wavers.  She can’t focus, can’t stop shaking.  It’s goddamn pathetic, because, again, she’s lived through things like this before.  But after settling down and having a home and letting her feelings change her, this seems so much worse.  There’s so much on the line.  The enormity of that has her panting through clenched teeth and choking down a little sob.

He comes right back.  “Are you hurt?”  He cups her face and lifts it, and not for the first time, she’s struck by how much bigger he is than her.  He towers over her a solid six inches, and he’s got at least a hundred pounds of serum-enhanced muscle on her.  Not too long ago having a man crowd her personal space like this would have been aggravating and threatening.  Now she melts into him more, and it’s not just the pain and physical exertion that’s made her so woozy.

It’s the need for comfort.

“Nat, talk to me.”

She shakes herself free of her haze.  “Just – just a little banged up,” she manages.

His blue eyes are doubtful, and his jaw clenches in a way that’s become so familiar.  “Come on,” he orders.  “Sit.”

He leads her to the bed.  Well, “bed” is a generous term for this rattling, ugly, ramshackle cot in front of her.  She gathers herself enough to look around more and sees this room truly is barely bigger than a prison cell.  There’s nothing in it other than the bed, an old cabinet, a sink barely fastened to the wall, and the window.  Oh, and one lonely, grimy light overhead that they won’t dare turn on.  The floor creaks, made of boards that look like they’re about to give at any second, and the walls appear as terrible everywhere else as they do by the window.  The air reeks of mildew and refuse.  She’s been in some bad places in her time, and this one is definitely up there.

Beggars can’t be choosers.  Her time as a SHIELD agent and an Avenger was so nice and comfortable that she’s almost forgotten that.  A few months on the run has her remembering that life lesson really quickly.  The second Steve sits her on that crappy bed, it doesn’t matter how awful it is.  She wants to collapse.

He doesn’t let her, though.  “How bad is it?” he asks. He’s crouching in front of her, hands on her legs, eyes bright and extremely worried.

This is stupid.  She can’t be this weak.  “Not bad.”

“Nat–”

“Rogers, we don’t have time for this.”  Her tone is sharper than it needs to be, and it’s useless because she knows she can’t deter him.  She’s not sure why she’s even trying.  As the adrenaline from the fight and flight fades more and more, her head is throbbing worse and worse.  The pain in her ribs is bad enough that she doesn’t want to straighten all the way.  She’s pretty sure she’s bleeding where that bullet clipped her; her uniform is warm, sticky, and tacky along her left side.  She feels terrible.

But she can’t stop.  She learned that long ago.  When things are at their worst, you can’t slow down.  Can’t let yourself rest.  That’s when things creep up on you.  That’s when they attack, vicious and cruel.  Like the Accords.  Like losing Bruce and Clint and Thor.  Even losing Tony.  The moment you let yourself think you’re safe, that’s when you’re at your most vulnerable.

So she shakes her head as Steve opens his mouth to argue.  “We gotta get to Sam,” she declares, and then she tries to stand.  The room pitches, a hungry swirl of black and gray, and against her will she’s back on the bed and leaning into him for support.  The squeal of the old, undoubtedly rusty bed springs has her wincing, and not just because the loudness made her headache worse.

“We need to take care of you first,” Steve says softly, touching her cheek.  The world is even quickly becoming even more blurred and fuzzy around the edges, but she can still see how panicked he is, how desperate and worried and torn.  He’s not even trying to hide it.  “Let me look at you.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.”

“If they get Sam–”

“Sam’s smart and he knows how to hide,” Steve replied, and he’s already tackling the zippers and clasps of her uniform.  “He’ll be okay.  And I think most of them came after me, after us.”  He says that darkly, with a great deal of anger and even more guilt.  “Let’s just handle this first and then we’ll handle what to do next.”

She can’t argue, and she can’t even think twice about him undressing her.  There really isn’t any reason to be embarrassed, and modesty flew out the window when they went on the run.  They’ve slept together many times (not _slept_ together, but cuddled close at night for heat, comfort, and security).  She’s pretty sure he’s accidentally walked in on her when she’s been almost naked a few times because they’ve been forced to change in small areas with little to no privacy.  She knows she’s seen him down to his underwear, even before all this.  She’s not ashamed to admit she’s looked in the past.  He’s so beautiful it’s hard not to.  At any rate, there’s not much left between them at this point, and they’re battle-hardened besides.

So he doesn’t waste time in getting her uniform top down, and she doesn’t spare too much energy thinking about how much she’s wanted this or fantasized about it in the past.  She just can’t.  Everything hurts so damn bad.  Why becomes horrifically obvious as he gets her down to her undershirt and then to only her bra.  “Damn it,” he whispers, and the horror on his face pains her even more than her injuries.

Which she sees now are far more extensive than she thought.  The bullet did graze her, but it was large caliber and gouged her flank but good.  The deep gash is oozing red all down her side.  Plus there are bruises all over her chest and belly, ones that are already deeply purple and red.  No wonder it hurts so much to sit, even to breathe.  Steve’s face is white in the darkness, his blue eyes glowing with so much emotion as he gently prods at her midsection with trembling fingers.  She can’t hold in an agonized moan.  He’s so careful, but it’s excruciating.  “Don’t think they’re broken.”

Blinking away tears, she sucks in a breath to steady herself and makes herself focus.  “Bruised maybe,” she grits out.  She’s pretty sure of that.  A lifetime spent fighting and the expertise she has at killing has taught her how to gauge the severity of injuries pretty well.

The same goes for him, though she can tell _these_ injuries are troubling him far beyond their severity.  He fingers the gash on her side, and she chokes down another groan.  She managed through all that running to ignore the pain.  Even a few seconds ago she was numb.  Now that the wound is bare and ugly and undeniable, it’s throbbing with fresh agony.  It’s hard to breathe through that when she can’t inhale too deeply, and she feels woozy and even more lightheaded, so she doesn’t notice him standing, him rushing around the crappy hotel room, him hunting for supplies.  “St-Steve?”

Clearly there’s nothing to find, not really.  Just the sink and the bed.  He rips the cabinet open, tearing one of the doors off its hinges.  He sets that to the floor in a hurry before glancing inside, but whatever’s he finds (if anything) disgusts him because he shuts the doors again and comes back.  Then he stands there a second, looking absolutely panicked and more shaken than she can recall ever seeing him.  Through everything, through the Battle of New York and SHIELD collapsing and the Winter Soldier and even Peggy Carter’s death…  Even after losing Tony and walking away from the only thing he’s really known since waking up in the future, he hasn’t seemed this… _lost._

“Steve,” she calls, wincing with her hand pressed to the open wound in her side.

That gets him moving again, and he rushes back to her.  His hands are big and more sure as they pull hers away.  “Gotta get some pressure on this,” he murmurs in a panicked whisper, shaking his head.  He looks around frantically and increasingly frustrated.  “If it needs stitches, it’s going to have to wait.  Not much here to work with.”

She grits her teeth as he stands again.  “We – we could make a break… make it for the safe house!”

He looks around, and even as muddled as she is, she can tall he’s considering it.  “We’ll never make it,” he quietly answers.  She knows he’s right, as much as she doesn’t want to admit it.  She’s not quite sure where they are, but any place in this part of Lagos is too far to chance on foot, not with her slowing them down.  Maybe they can steal a car, but that’s risky.  Those sirens outside mean the local authorities are probably hunting them, too.  Plus the mercs.  Plus there is no way to be certain the safe house itself isn’t compromised.  In a city full of millions of people, they have a better chance of hiding.

But staying here…  “Sam,” she whispers again, shaking her head.

Then there’s a loud ripping noise.  She jerks in shock, turning to the side and seeing Steve tearing the sheets on the bed.  He glances at her, wincing in worry both at the volume of the sound and probably her startled reaction.  “Knife?”

It takes her a second to realize he’s asking for hers.  She reaches to her thigh holster and pulls the combat blade free.  That she offers to him, her hand shaking.  Their fingers brush a moment, and he seems like he wants to touch her just to steady her, as if he himself _is_ steady.  He’s not in the slightest, and she pulls away and tries to center herself alone with a deeper breath.  He starts slicing.  “Sam’ll be fine,” he assures again after a beat, voice barely above a murmur.  “Okay?  He will be.  Just…  Keep an eye on the phone while I take care of this.  You know he’ll contact us the second he can.”

Natasha watches him quickly and not too carefully cut up the sheet a moment more before she turns away.   She pulls her phone out of her pocket.  A couple months back she led Steve and Sam to one of SHIELD’s more remote stations in northern Africa, one that was rarely used by anyone other than her and Clint.  The two of them always kept the place well stocked when they ran missions, so the three of them raided it for supplies.  They also found a bunch of working comm links and a few SHIELD-issue smartphones.  With a little luck, she managed to reprogram them to be untraceable even to anyone using SHIELD’s protocols (she hopes – she’s no Tony Stark).  So far, so good.  Running the few ops they do manage aside, they have to be in contact with one another given everything is so constantly screwed up.

Of course, it hasn’t escaped her attention that if Tony really wants to find them, he’s going to be able to figure out her hack job.  So there’s that.  Still, they have to trust something.  As much as Tony can be a dick, she doesn’t think for a second he’d ever put a bounty on their heads or send blood-thirsty mercenaries after them.  This is Ross, through and through.

Which is why they _can’t_ be captured, why they have to find Sam and get the hell out.  Her hands shake worse as she unlocks the device and thumbs through the screens to find their secure text line.  Calling is too much of a risk, both for them and for Sam, so she takes a breath and begins to type.  Of course, that gets interrupted by Steve pushing a large piece of the sheet to her bleeding side.  The pain is intense, like fire incinerating her skin and muscles, as he pushes hard to stop the bleeding.  “Sorry,” he whispers, and his eyes look teary.  “Sorry, Nat!”

She can hardly make herself breathe.  The phone almost drops from her limp fingers, and she whimpers despite herself, grabbing Steve’s uniform with her free hand and hanging onto him.  She sticks her own knuckles into her mouth to keep from screaming, whining miserably, her voice muffled by the meat of his shoulder.  His arm comes around her to support her.  “I got you,” he murmurs into her hair.  Her blood’s pounding, a whooshing thunder between her ears, but she can hear him promising.  “I got you.  I got you.”

For a while, that’s all she can focus on, his chest beneath her cheek and the rumble of his voice in her hair and the hand on her back.  His promise.  That’s enough to anchor her, to help her get through what feels like an eternity of agony without making a sound.  Some part of her idly thinks she should be better than this; she’s survived far worse with less support.  But here, in the middle of enemy territory, with their whole world radically changed and turned against them…  Again, she’s not so strong.

And she can’t fathom facing any of this without him.

Eventually battered and tortured nerves settle down into numbness, and other senses fill in the void. The quiet of the night.  The sound of Steve breathing against her and her own wheezing.  The coarse feel of the Kevlar mesh of his uniform, and the soft rub of his beard against her brow.  The awful smell of this place tinged by the metallic aroma of blood.  The salty sting of her own tears on her tongue, and how tightly curled her fingers are in his clothes.  She can’t make herself let go, even as he peels her back a little to look in her eyes.

His are teeming with anguish.  “I’m so sorry,” he whispers again.  He sweeps the hair from her bruised face (the blonde hair that she hates, but red is too obvious and she has to change because they can’t be spotted because they’re fucking _fugitives_ and that’s so fucking unfair and _wrong_ ) and cups her cheeks.  His voice hitches, and for a second, she’s certain he’s going to cry.  “This is all my fault.”

She doesn’t have it within her to answer him.  Her eyes droop, and the world dims.  She just breathes, just barely floats above it all for a second.  Even slackening, the grip of pain is too tight, and it’s pulling her down.  She’s going to lose consciousness.  She hears Steve’s voice, sees him turn, sees him start to rise before coming right back.  Sees the panic even stronger in his eyes.  Hears noise outside.  Notices flashing lights streaking by the window.  It’s a peculiar thing, the certainty of knowing she is going to pass out from pain and blood loss yet not being able to do a damn thing to prevent it.  The inevitability of it is weird, alarming yet not at the same time because she is already detached from her body so nothing seems all that sharp or upsetting.  Nothing matters, because she’s already slipping away.  She can’t care about any of it.  Not even Steve begging her to stay with him.

And not even the sirens, getting closer and closer.

* * *

When Natasha awakes, it’s quiet.  She doesn’t recognize where she is.  There’s light coming in to the right.  That’s too miserably bright, so she quickly looks away and blinks her eyes into focus.  She’s in a room, one that is pretty nondescript: small in size, gray walls, not much in terms of furniture, fairly nice and clean if not a little utilitarian and bereft of any charm.  She’s lying in a bed that’s slightly more comfortable and in way better shape than that godawful cot.  In fact, _everything_ is much nicer than that hellhole they were in.

Her beleaguered mind puts things together.  She’s not in that shitty hotel room.  Panic comes, because _where the hell is she and where is Steve?_   She glances down the length of her body and sees she’s still in her uniform, though her undershirt is back on and her socks and boots are gone.  There are real bandages around her midsection, white pads and gauze, and as she breathes she feels the familiar tug of stitches.  Her ribs still ache but not nearly as bad as before because the wrappings around her chest are providing support.  Tentatively she tries to inhale deeper, move a bit.

Which she needs to do.  _Move._   Because she doesn’t know where she is, and her first instinct, born into her from years of hell in the Red Room and reinforced by the last couple months, is _to run._   So she tries to get up, tries to make her leaden body work, tries to do _something._

“Don’t, Nat.”

Natasha turns back toward the light where the voice was.  This time she makes herself stare until she can handle it, until she can see past it.

Steve’s right here.  He’s still in his uniform pants and boots, but he’s taken off the top to reveal the Lycra under armor.  His hair is mussed, and his face looks a little dirty like he hasn’t taken time to wash carefully, and his eyes are hollow.  He’s got one of her guns in his right hand at his side (which is all kinds of unusual and uncomfortable – he so rarely ever handles a firearm), and he’s standing next to the window, just to the side of it like he’s been looking out but doesn’t want anyone to spot him if they look in.  Clearly he’s been standing guard and keeping watch.

Right now, though, he’s watching her.  With the sun streaming in behind him, he looks powerful and inexplicably not like himself.  His dirty uniform is so dark with the light wrapping around him, but his eyes are unearthly bright.  He’s ethereal, breath-taking, seemingly godlike with the perfection of his body, its tall strength, the swell of muscles and tendons pulled taut and the outline of veins on his arms, the lines of sinew in his hands…  The way the light caresses and embraces him.  He’s more than human yet so incredibly down to earth, a person born of everything that makes humanity good and decent yet brought beyond humanity’s limits.  An amazing juxtaposition of greatness and unassuming humility, of worthiness and calm simplicity, of perfection and very humble flaws.  He seems so much more than anything or anyone she’s ever known.  So much more than her.

But then he steps out of the light, and he’s normal again.  Pale and dark and very worn down.  His eyes are red-rimmed, and he’s bent though he doesn’t look hurt.  Still, he manages a tight smile as he comes to the bed and sets the gun to the table beside it.  “Stay still.  You shouldn’t try to move.”

She probably shouldn’t.  Her head feels stuffed with wool, like she’s had too much to drink.  Already that incredible moment, seeing him in that stunning light, seems silly.  She shouldn’t have stared, shouldn’t have let herself think that stuff.  “What happened?” she asks.

He sits on the bed beside her.  He’s not touching her.  Between her flirting and teasing back in the day and their rapidly growing friendship since then, not to mention how utterly reliant she was on him… last night?  They’ve never been hesitant about physical contact.  Again, privacy has really vanished of late.  That means right now the few inches between them feels infinite.  “We got out of the city,” Steve finally explains, “because I got a hold of Sam.”

 _Sam._   Relief washes over her, and she closes her eyes in utter gratitude.  “He’s okay?”

Steve’s Adam’s apple bobs like he’s swallowing rocks.  He nods.  “He answered my text not too long after you passed out.  He was actually hiding fairly close to us, and he made it over, and we managed to get you down and away from the area.   Stole a car.  Again.”  He gives a small, self-deprecating smile that does very little to hide how low he’s feeling.  “Probably a miracle we made it out of there without getting caught.  There were police everywhere.  And I’m not sure what happened to the guys after us.  They didn’t do a good job blocking escape routes.  Or Sam and I are just luckier than hell.”

That’s a lot to take in.  “Considering all the trouble you get into, you guys are lucky,” she muses off-handedly.  She sits up, wincing at the tug on her stitches and the dull ache in her chest.  He doesn’t stop her.  “So where are we then?” she asks, glancing around anew.

“Another hotel,” Steve replies, leaning back a bit.  “In one of the moderately nicer surrounding towns.”

That explains the better conditions.  _Thank God._   “How long was I out?”

“About eight hours.  I, um, stitched up your side.  Didn’t need much.  Probably didn’t need it at all, but why risk it, right?  And I bandaged up everything else.”  He sounds incredibly contrite.  “Once we got you here, Sam chanced trekking back to our safe house.”  She turns back to him, horrified, but he only nods.  “He insisted.  We needed supplies.  I waited with you.”

“You didn’t,” she says, aghast.

“He insisted,” Steve explains again.  “Said you needed me more than he did.”  That’s… just wrong, Sam risking all that alone.  She hates the risks he took, that they all have to take all the time.  _Goddamn it._ “It was fine.  Guess those assholes never figured out where we were, but we didn’t want to risk staying there in case they just hadn’t gotten there yet.  So he took all our stuff, spent most the rest of the money on these five-star accommodations, and… that’s it.”  He shrugs, but his attempt at nonchalance dies pretty spectacularly.  “He went down to the market to get some food.”

Hearing all this seems so strange, that things could change so quickly.  She’s quiet as she tries to process it, tries to think.  It’s mind-boggling.  She’s lost consciousness plenty of times in the past, been hurt and had things go on without her, but this…  The dark, awful night and the fear and terrible conditions and the op gone wrong.  All of that is pushing up hard against this bright morning and cleaner air and comfort.  No pain or fear.  She notices then that Steve must have washed her, too, and better than he did himself.  The blood that was coating her hands and painting her side, the dirt and sweat on her skin, the stink of the battle…  All of that is gone.

But it’s not like it was never there at all.  She sees it in the lines of his shoulders, so obvious under the skintight under armor.  She can sense it in his posture, how tense he is.  That, too, is a sharp contrast, the fact that he’s still this upset even though they escaped what very nearly was a complete disaster.  “So we’re safe here?” she asks worriedly, not liking the way he looks at all.

Obviously he got lost in his thoughts in that brief pause, and she can’t read him other than knowing he’s upset, just as upset as he was before if not more so.  Steve bottles a lot up, so much in fact, but she’s learned to understand him.  It’s not all that hard, once you realize he believes he doesn’t have the right, much less the option, to be a burden.  She thinks that’s one of the reasons he and Stark get on so poorly.  Tony is a good guy.  He’s smart and witty and beyond generous, but he’s loud and emotional and demanding about it.  His personality often places his needs and his thoughts front and center, so sometimes his sense of guilt and his attempts to do the right thing force compliance from everyone else.  Like with Ultron.  Like with the Accords.  There wasn’t anything inherently wrong with what he thought and how he felt, but he couldn’t – probably still can’t – reconcile those strong, controlling emotions with the emotions of anyone else.

Steve’s not like that.  He leads by example.  He inspires others to follow him.  That speech he gave when SHIELD was about to be overrun completely by HYDRA is the point where she really realized that, what it truly _meant._   Thus it makes sense that when it comes to _his_ emotions, he’s quiet, reserved, and withdrawn.  He doesn’t show what he’s thinking.  You have to read between the lines, resettle your baseline sense of perception to his and then understand the world through that lens, where his own needs and wants and desires are inconsequential.  He barely even cried at Peggy’s funeral, and he hardly talked about her before she passed away.  He never slowed down when they learned his best friend (whose situation he explicitly blames himself for) was the Winter Soldier.  He picked himself right up after the battle in Washington DC, even after being shot multiple times and beaten badly and nearly drowned, and never once asked for help.  He didn’t lose his cool with Tony, even when Tony refused to listen to him.  He was angry, and he felt betrayed, and Natasha could tell, but he didn’t talk about it.  That’s who he is.  He doesn’t bleed on anyone.

Something is very wrong here.  “Steve,” she calls a bit more firmly.  His eyes sharpen and he almost jerks off the bed.  She shakes her head, reaching for him but then stopping herself.  She can hardly breathe.  “Are we safe?”

He gives a shaky breath, barely catching her eyes before he’s standing and walking away, crossing the small room to go back to the window.  She watches the tension work its way over his body, the muscles of his back taut, biceps flexing as his hands ball into fists at his sides.  For a moment, he doesn’t answer.  It seems like maybe he won’t.

But then he very quietly says, “I’m turning myself in.”

The words are so softly spoken, so seemingly weightless and innocuous, that she’s not sure he really said them.  She reels in their wake, squinting at the bright light, struggling.  “What?”

He drops his gaze to his feet.  It’s defeated, like he was hoping somehow not to have to explain.  And she knows.  She knows what he’s saying.  She knows what he’s doing, what he’s planning, what he’s thinking.  _She knows._   But she can’t accept that, the niggling, awful whisper slithering around the back of her head, so he’s damn well going to have to _say it._ “I’m going to surrender to Ross,” he finally declares with as much bravado as he can muster.

Now there’s no denying it.  It’s out there, naked and ugly and awful, and there’s no fucking denying a thing.  She does anyway, eyes wide, shaking her head.  All the pain from her injuries is nothing, _gone,_ as she moves to the side of the bed.  “What did you say?” she hisses lowly.

Steve tenses even further.  “You shouldn’t get up.”

“Like hell,” she snaps.  “What are you talking about?  Turning yourself in?  That’s – that’s–”  She sputters, horrified with the mere idea of it.  “You can’t!”

“I can,” he responds, clearly trying to keep his voice level in the face of her anger, “and I should, so I will.”

She can’t believe this.  She really can’t.  In fury and desperation she stands, and the room tilts for a second, but she doesn’t let that stop her.  She can’t _stop_.  “Have you lost your goddamn mind?  Ross is after you!  He’s been after _you_.”

“I know he is,” Steve murmurs.

“He might have set all of this up, the Accords and the bounty hunters and _everything_ , just to get you and the serum!  It’s what he’s wanted, what he’s always been after!”  Then it really occurs to her what Steve’s suggesting, what it really means.  It’s stupid that it didn’t sooner.  She shakes her head, utterly horrified.  She thinks of the Raft, where they busted out Sam, Clint, Wanda, and Scott.  She thinks of what that place was, what it _meant_.  A secret, super-max prison, hidden under the ocean and away from prying eyes.  What Ross can do to Steve there...  There’ll be nothing to stop him.  If there was any concern for due process before, it’s gone now with all of them branded as fugitives and criminals.  With Captain America as his prisoner…  _No._ Never.  That can _never_ happen.  She stares at him, shaking her head.  “No.  No, no, no.”

He deflates, visibly shrinks before her eyes.  “I have to.”

“No, you don’t,” she says again, taking a step toward him.

And he turns, eyes wild and voice breaking.  “I have to!  Don’t you see?  This can’t happen again!  It can’t!  All these close calls, the times we’ve barely gotten away...  It can’t go on, Nat!”

She shakes her head.  “This isn’t the way!  Steve–”

“I can turn myself in,” he says again.  “Ross wants the serum, so that’s leverage, something I can use to bargain with him.  Maybe I can get him to drop the charges against you.  My cooperation for a pardon.  And then you could go back to the States or at least somewhere safe.  It’d get the heat off of you so can be free.”  He nods, more to himself than to her.  “I could get you and Sam home.”

 _Home._   She thinks about that for a second, about what he’s proposing.  Getting back to New York.  To the Avengers complex.  Is that her home?  She thought so before, but she doesn’t know anymore.  There’s logic to this for sure, and for a split second, she lets herself consider what he’s saying, what he’s _offering_.  Negotiating with the government is what Clint did, what Scott arranged, too.  Both of them took plea deals to stay in the country and out of prison for the sake of their families.  Both of them have too much to lose to do anything else.

She didn’t.  She’s realizing that now.  Yes, she lost the team.  Yes, she lost her role.  And, yes, she lost a bit of herself.  But that complex, the city, the US even...  _None_ of that is her home.  Nothing ties her to any of it.  And what she really stands to lose is right in front of her.  “You can’t do it,” she says again, even more disgusted and frightened.  “Absolutely not.  This isn’t right.  It’s not the way.”

Steve shakes his head.  “It’s the only way.”

“Bullshit,” she hisses in frustration, her eyes welling.  “We don’t trade lives.”  He flashes a glare, teeth grinding.  She isn’t daunted in the least.  “You don’t get to sacrifice your freedom, your body, for us!  And you can’t trust Ross.  You can’t, not even for a second!  You think he’ll uphold any bargain you make with him?  You think he’ll let me and Sam go?  You’re deluding yourself.”

“I have to try.”  His voice is shaky.  “I have to.”

“He’ll hurt you,” she gasps.  “He’ll hurt you!”

 _“And you could have died!”_ he cries.  His eyes are bright with unshed tears, with all this pain and grief he’s barely held back for weeks.  _Months._   “They could have killed you.  Or they could have gotten you, taken you, and I can’t–”  He cuts himself off, as if the mere thought is too distressing.  Then he’s shaking his head and coming closer, grasping her arms.  She can feel the bruising strength of his fingers, all that power barely held back.  “That can’t happen.  I can’t be the reason it happens.  I can’t lose you!”

She feels overwhelmed, and she doesn’t know what to say, what she can say.  “This isn’t your fault,” she finally offers, though it sounds pathetic and weak to her ears.

He thinks it is, too.  He gives a rough chuckle, something twisted up in a sob maybe, and lets her go.  “The hell it isn’t.  You know what happened last night, after you passed out?  Huh?”  She doesn’t, of course.  She can see him shaking, see the pain crush him down.  “I held you in that crappy room, held you as close as I could, and felt you breathe, and listened to those sirens, those goddamn _sirens_ , and tried to get in touch with Sam, and waited and waited...  And the sirens kept going outside, shrill and loud as hell, one after another, and all I could do was pray.  Pray they passed us by.  Pray they weren’t coming for me.  Pray that no one found us.”  He bites his lower lip hard.  She can see his jaw trembling.  “All I could think was even if I got you out of this, it’s not gonna stop.  Even if we get away this time, there’s gonna be a next time.  Another fight just like this one bearing right down on us.  That’s how it’s been, only it’s gettin’ worse and worse, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

She can’t argue with that.  The second they started out on their own, she and Steve and Sam, life’s been nothing but hell.  They’ve had little to no provisions, no support, no safe haven, and everyone the world over, from corrupt factions to terrorist groups to bounty hunters to the US government itself, has been hunting them.  They’ve been trying to continue the fight, to protect people.  Like they tried last night.  And, like last night, it hasn’t been all that successful.

Steve seems to be reading her mind.  “Except this.  What happened yesterday _can’t_ happen again.  We got lucky, end of discussion.  Next time we might not.  So I’m turning myself over to them, and I’m gonna get you guys out of this like I should have months ago.”

He says that with such conviction now.  It kills her that it’s over this, but for the first time in weeks, she really sees _him._   The man she used to know, used to admire so much.  The man who believes in something.  Not this broken ghost barely stumbling along.  He thinks this is right.  He feels it to his core.

But it’s so very, very wrong, and she has to make him see that.

Only she doesn’t know how, so silence crawls between them.  She can hear things outside.  People talking.  Children playing.  Cars passing.  Mundane and simple and peaceful.  Inside, her heart is booming, and he’s stiff and staring at her.  Then he lets her go and backs off, like he doesn’t think he’s worthy to touch her more than this.  Like he’s already taken too much.  She can’t stand it, and more anger, acidic and awful, burns her throat.  They never fight.  They shouldn’t now, when they have so many problems and anyone could be tracking them.  But she can’t help the pain inside.  It’s insidious and cruel and devastating.  Her eyes fill with furious tears, and her voices shakes.  “So that’s it then.  You’re just going to leave?”  He doesn’t answer, turning back to the window.  Shame bends him now, and he leans into the wall.  She can’t help but be glad for that.  “You’re just going to quit?  Walk out on us?”

“Nat, please,” he whispers.

“What does Sam think of this grand plan of yours?” she snaps.  She knows the answer to the question before she asks; that’s not the point.

He answers anyway.  “He’ll understand.”

“Like hell, Rogers!  He’s here, same as me, because we _want_ to be!  Don’t _you_ get that?”  She takes a step to him again, grabbing his arm and yanking him around.  Her chest aches, but not as much as her breaking heart and bleeding spirit.  He won’t meet her gaze.  “We didn’t have to come with you!  I could have let T’Challa and Stark and everyone arrest you back at that airport, but I didn’t.  I could have stayed and faced the consequences of what I did, but I didn’t.  I didn’t because I knew you were right.”  He winces and turns away.  “No, no.  You listen to me.  I don't care what Stark told you.  I don’t care what he made you think.  You’re Captain America.”

“No,” he argues.  “Not anymore.”

“ _Yes._   You don’t need a shield and a star on your chest and a grateful nation to stand for what you’ve always stood for.  That hasn’t changed.”  She swallows a sob, because even she isn’t sure.  It’s not that she doubts that he’s worthy of Captain America, but she’s not at all sure that Captain America is worthy of _him_.  This symbol he’s always embodied...  It’s not right.  Not anymore.  It’s been used, abused, lied to, manipulated.  She’s lost her faith in it.

But she goes on, because she knows she won’t ever lose her faith in him.  “So you can’t quit.  I don’t care what happened.  You did the right thing going after Barnes and trying to stop that doctor and standing up for what you believe in.  It just took me too long to realize it, and when I did, I left the team.  I _left_ , Steve. I left it all because I was never going to let myself forget that again.”

His face crumples.  “I fucked up,” he moans.  “You don’t know how much!”

He so rarely swears like that or sounds so _ruined_.  “I don’t care,” she replies.  “Whatever’s eating you up like this...  It’s not right.  It’s not worth you punishing yourself.  And whatever you think you did that’s so wrong...  I know this thing that happened between you and Tony can be fixed, okay?  It’s not worth your life.”

“But you are.”

Her mouth falls open.  She feels blood drain from her face, feels her breath lock in her chest and her muscles quiver.  That’s…  She can’t even describe how that makes her feel.  It’s shocking, overwhelming, terrifying, _impossible_ because she’s not worth that.  She’s not good enough to _be_ worth that.

And he goes on, as earnest and sincere as ever.  “I can’t let you be hurt because of me.”  His voice is hardly more than a plea.  “I can’t do it.”

It takes a moment, but she finds her voice again.  And it’s so hard, because she’s reeling with what he’s telling her, with what she’s beginning to understand.  This is bigger than she realized.  “I – I can’t do it, either.  I can’t let you go.  I can’t let you do this.”

He shakes his head and tries to pull away.  He can if he wants.  Of course he can.  He’s significantly stronger than her, still so much bigger, and she can’t make him do anything.  Right now, though, with the way he’s looking at her…  She has power.  She can feel it.  This isn’t just about what’s right and wrong, or everything that’s happened that’s changed them both so much.  It’s not even about Sam, though certainly Steve loves him like his brother.  She knows that like she knows how decent and kind and brave they both are and how much she needs them both.  How they’re all she has in this world right now.  How she and Sam are all Steve has, maybe all he’s had for much longer than she’s realized.

This is more than any of that, though.  She looks into Steve’s eyes, into that swirling storm of emotion, and she sees things she didn’t make sense of before.  Somewhere during all this…  It’s been growing all along, but she didn’t _see_ it, didn’t understand it or recognize it.  Now it’s so clear, why she’s been drawn to him.  Why she was so intimidated at SHIELD by him, why she kept him at arm’s length, why she tried to set him up on countless dates he clearly didn’t have any interest in.  Why she trusted him after Fury was shot, and why she followed him through SHIELD’s collapse, followed him back to New York even though she felt so lost.  Why she could have remade herself into anything and anyone, but she chose to rejoin the Avengers.  Why she’s been at his side, at _only_ his side, for years.  Fought at his side and planned at his side and learned from him and laughed and even cried with him.  Why she couldn’t make things work with Bruce.  Why she couldn’t stay with Tony, even when part of her definitely wanted to.

Why she’s here.  Why there was never any other choice _but_ to be here, to be with him, to follow him wherever he goes.

She can’t follow him if he does this.

_I can’t let you do this!_

Desperation blasts through her, hot and demanding and terrifying, and she can’t stand it.  Before she even knows what she’s doing, she’s pulling him closer again and kissing him hard.  The mere taste of his lips, dry and chapped and salty with old sweat and dried tears, is utterly intoxicating.  So much inside her is freed, things she’s maybe dreamed of in the past but never really considered, because it just wasn’t possible that he can want her, that they can do this, that they can _be_ this, that he can–

He gasps into her mouth, and she prays that’s an invitation to deepen the kiss because she can’t stop herself.  She sweeps her tongue inside, touches it to his, tastes him more.  And for a second she fears she’s read this all wrong, because he’s hesitant, stiff, scared probably and obviously overwhelmed.  But then he’s wrapping his arms around her, pulling her to him, kissing her back.  He’s searching her mouth, too, timidly for just an instant before it becomes hungry and just as desperate.  She utterly melts in pleasure, grasping his shirt just to hang on, just to anchor herself, because kissing him like this takes away the pain, silences the fear, soothes the misery, and before she even knows what’s happening, they’re stumbling back across the room to the bed.

They don’t speak.  There’s nothing that needs to be said.  There are whispers in the back of her mind as her calves hit the bed, as she’s sitting on it and tugging him after her.  Maybe this is foolish.  Dangerous.  Crazy.  She has no idea if he’s ever been with anyone.  She’s been with too many people to count.  They’re very different, and this is the wrong place, and he’s not thinking straight.  They’re _both_ not thinking straight, emotionally compromised, and this is…

He groans into her lips, climbing on top of her in a way she’s never allowed any other man to do, and – _God_ – this is _right_.  He’s so big and strong, blanketing her but never crushing her down, and she shivers in ecstasy she didn’t think she could feel.  The muscles of his back flex as she runs her hands down him, the lycra sticking and puckering.  Not for a second has his mouth left hers, but he pulls back so she can drag his shirt up and over his head.  There isn’t much time to look, not with how fevered and frantic this is, but she feels.  She feels the smoothness of his skin, perfect to the touch, soft in some places and hard in others.  She feels power shifting beneath her fingers, muscles rippling, as she caresses his shoulders, his flanks.  She feels him breathe, the air he pulls every time he pulls away for even a moment, the way his ribcage expands and contracts.  The firmness of his abs and his pecs brushing against her breasts as he kisses her and kisses her.  The heat of him, the weight of him, the way he’s rolling his hips into her almost mindlessly.  Wantonly.

 _Everything._   She moans, throwing her head back onto the thin pillow as he kisses down her neck.  Pleasure fires across her body, bright and sharp against how dark and painful everything has been.  He’s kissing along her jaw, mouthing at her throbbing pulse point, and she threads her hands through the thickness of his hair just to hold on again, to have _something_ because she’s untethered, soaring, frighteningly loose and free.  She wants him like she’s never wanted anything else, and it frightens how, how powerful that feeling is.  She can’t think about it.  She clasps her knees around his hips, keeping him close, and pulls up her shirt between them before very boldly taking his hands where they’re tangled into the thread-bare sheets to put them on her breasts.

He shivers.  He doesn’t ask if it’s okay.  It is.  And she’s fumbling for his belt as he’s lining her throat with wet kisses, as he’s trailing his lips over her collarbones.  He rubs her nipple through the cotton of her bra, slow and uncertain for just a moment before the blaze of desire emboldens him and he’s pulling the cups down.  Threads rip and a seam comes loose.  She writhes.  Her chest aches under the bandages, and her stitches pull, and she can’t stifle a whimper.  Of course he stops immediately, but she doesn’t want him to.  She doesn’t want anything to take this from him, from her, from _them,_ so the soreness is nothing, and she can handle it.  She doesn’t falter, doesn’t waver for even a beat of her heart, reaching even further for his belt with one hand despite the discomfort and guiding his head back to her chest with the other.  He’s clearly too overwhelmed by need to stop (or he trusts her.  God, she’s only ever wanted him to trust her).  He finally gets her breasts from her bra, and the simple, stupid pressure of the extra elastic of the displaced cups too low on her chest hurts, but she can’t care, not in the slightest, when he puts his mouth on her.

It’s only the barest of instinct and self-control that has her stifling a blissful cry.  Now it’s sharply obvious that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but she can’t care about this either, and he learns quickly.  His beard rubs, burns just a bit on soft skin, and that’s more, more to feel and to want, as he kisses around her nipple before drawing the peak of it between his lips.  Then he suckles, lightly at first but harder almost immediately.  She whines.  Her sore ribs and his weight don’t let her arch into him, which is maddening.  So is the fact that she can’t manage enough coordination or mental acumen to get his pants undone, resorting to rubbing his erection through coarse fabric instead.  That earns her a muffled cry of his own, and ridiculous pride rushes through her.  She’s never cared about making her partner feel good.  Sex was a weapon to her when she served the Red Room, even when she served SHIELD.  As Black Widow, she always used her body like a tool, one to seduce as much as one to kill, and no one touched her unless she wanted it.

She wants this.  And she’s not Black Widow anymore.

He shivers as she grasps him firmer through his pants, bucking into her touch and trying to get his lower half closer to her.  She rewards him with another stroke, rough fabric being pulled on sensitive places, and he sucks harder on her other breast like he needs to in order to keep sane.  Natasha clenches her eyes shut, a deep, empty _ache_ throbbing between her legs.  Pleasure is cascading upon pleasure, tantalizing but not enough.  She needs more, needs _him._ Thus she’s frantic and whimpering as she pushes him away.  It’s such torture to do that, to be parted from the wet heat of his mouth and the heaviness of his body for even a second, to see the desperation and worry and want in his hazy blue eyes, and she’s flailing and fumbling to get her pants off.

He snaps to it then, moving back from between her legs as she shimmies and squirms as much as her injuries let her.  He does the rest, pulling the clothes off her legs and tossing them aside before coming back.  He took her underwear too, and he’s staring, looking at her with wide, awestruck eyes, breathing hard and flushed down his chest.  She can’t tolerate the exposure, the adoration in his gaze that feels too raw and too real, the _distance_.  Roughly she’s grabbing him and dragging him down to her.  She can’t let go of him.  _Not for a second._   Their mouths meet anew, a deep kiss that’s sloppy and heated and frantic, a brief struggle for ravenous dominance that quickly and easily settles.  She’s never been kissed like this, never had her breath stolen and her heart opened.  Never been wanted and needed like every touch and caress is an affirmation.  _We’re alive.  We’re together._

She wants him inside her.

So she spreads her legs wider to allow him closer, reaching anew for his belt.  This time she gets it off despite her shaking fingers.  Then she’s fumbling with the clasps of his uniform pants, struggling with buckles and zippers, undoing it all and pulling the thick length of him free of his boxers.  He’s so hard it looks painful, flushed and dripping.  Stroking him like this, bare with the stiff, velvety weight of him heavy in her hand, leaves him gasping.  His eyes are glazed, his every muscle taut like a bowstring pulled to the ready.  She wants to lean up and kiss his chest, kiss every part of him, tease him, bring him to the edge and hold him there before easing him back.  She knows she can show him what his body craves.  She was trained in the Red Room how to pleasure a man, and she’s never wanted to use that before now.  She’s desperate to show him just how good this can be, how it can feel to let go, not just physically but emotionally.  He’s lived with too much loss, too much pain and suffering.  They both have.  She wants to take her time and take care of him.

But this isn’t that.  Not now.  Not yet.  His hands come down, batting her away, and he’s pushing his pants lower on his hips more to free himself further.  Then he’s coming down over her again, so pure and powerful, and his mouth seizes hers in a wild kiss as he fumbles between them.  His knuckles brush against her folds, and she’s so wet and ready that that tiny touch is electrifying.  She pulls back from his mouth again, groaning impatiently with every pant, and he’s kissing her neck and touching her.  She can’t – she won’t – _she needs–_

She reaches down and takes him and brings him inside her.

He sobs.  She’s afraid a moment that something’s wrong, but it’s not.  He rolls his hips once, twice, thrusts gently like it’s too much and he doesn’t know if this is okay or if he’s worthy of her.  Then he can’t hold back, like this tidal wave of desire has completely consumed him, blown away his reservations and his restraint.  He doesn’t go slow.  She won’t let him.  She has her knees clamped to his hips, her bare feet to his ass to keep him inside her, her arms around his neck and holding him to her.  Like before, he may be bigger and stronger, blanketing her petite form with his body, but she knows he’s hers.  This is how much he needs her, how much he wants her, how afraid he is that she got hurt, that he could have lost her.  And he shouldn’t have to feel like this, like sacrificing himself is the only option to save her.  He can have her.  She _lets_ him have her.  He’s trembling, mouth sealed to hers, just barely holding back how strong he really is, how much he’s feeling.  She feels the same.  She can’t think, can’t do more than hang on, can’t feel anything but fire inside her veins and ecstasy coiling inside her.  It’s been so long, and he’s so big and thick and deep, touching parts of her that have never felt like this.  Her injuries probably hurt, and she can’t hardly move under him, and this is a crappy hotel thousands of miles from everything they know with their enemies closing in on all sides.

None of that matters.

Steve shifts on his knees, twisting the angle just enough that he’s brushing that spot inside her with every deep, frantic thrust.  Natasha cries out into his mouth, and his tongue pushes inside hers, sweeping over her teeth and pressing against them.  A particularly hard push into her has her whimpering more, frantic for air but not willing to breathe.  She rakes her nails across his shoulders before she realizes what she’s doing.  Faster and faster he goes, and she clings, helplessly swept away in a wave of her own, the pleasure building and twisting and consuming her too.  It’s so incredibly good, but it’s still not enough, and she’s not sure – she’s not…  He’s grunting, his rhythm faltering, shaking and clearly barreling toward the edge.

But he doesn’t let himself get there.  She’s so overthrown with sensation that she doesn’t notice at first when he pulls away, his lips leaving hers and the heady pressure disappearing from inside her.  A split second later the loss becomes agonizing, and she cries herself, trembling with need and struggling helplessly.  Before she can even open her eyes, though, something else is inside her, filling her, and she whines and looks down between them to see his hand there, his fingers disappearing between her thighs.  She squeezes them together, wanting him deeper but so sensitive.  His fingers seem impossibly long, not as thick as his cock but infinitely more flexible and dexterous.  They thrust and stroke and probe, slowly but then faster and deeper.  He’s taking her to her end.  She’s not sure if he knew to do that, if someone explained anything about sex to him, or if he wants to stave off his own pleasure.  Or if it’s just him, so sweet, unselfish, self-sacrificing… 

 _God._ Natasha trembles, raising herself as much as she can manage, and Steve frantically takes what she offers, kissing her breasts anew, holding her to him.  Lifting her hips brushes the small, sensitive nub of flesh at the top of her against his thumb, and lightning arcs chaotically across nerves.  Her eyes roll back, toes curling, and everything tightens and tightens and–

She lets go.  Her climax is like nothing she’s ever felt before.  Her mind breaks.  Her heart pounds.  Her body sings.  Her lungs breathe, and she hangs in an infinite moment, cradled by him, surrounded and embraced and protected.  There’s no hell behind them, no danger before them.  No crappy hotel room in the midst of their enemies.  There’s nothing but this, and she surrenders to it.

When she comes back to herself, she’s beneath him once more.  His fingers are gone, and in one smooth, amazing breath, he’s again sliding inside her.  She’s even more oversensitive, moaning long and low in his ear, but it doesn’t hurt.  Nothing can hurt her now. 

He’s hurting, though.  He’s held himself off somehow, likely simply to ensure her happiness, but he can’t restrain himself any longer, and he thrusts hard and fast, chasing his own release.  She wraps her arms around him, one across his sweaty back, the other cupping the back of his head.  She holds him tight, coaxes him silently, keeps him in the cradle of her body, lets him find what he needs.  It doesn’t take more than another moment.  He thrusts deep, holds still, goes rigid, crying out weakly against her neck.  All of that tension finally releases.  His hard muscles relax, unwind, and he falls, limp and spent.

Neither of them move for what feels like forever.  In the haze, they drift, not quite willing to return to reality.  Fading pleasure is too decadent, a lasting kiss and ghostly caress, and she wants to hold onto it.  As sensation crawls back, it becomes harder and harder to do that.  Her chest aches.  Her stitches do, too.  So does between her thighs.  Sweat’s cooling on her skin.  He’s heavy on top of her, and their combined release is sticky and a little uncomfortable.  He’s breathing hard and fast into her neck, harder than she’s ever seen even when he’s fought for hours and fought hurt.  They’re here, in this terrible plae where thing seem doomed to go to hell.  It’s the morning after she got hurt and nearly killed or captured.  And Steve’s planning to leave.

_No._

She closes her eyes and holds him even tighter, keeping him there, on her and against her and within her.  It’s possessive, but she doesn’t even think to stop herself.  She kisses his hair, strokes it tenderly, and lets herself sink into what she’s feeling.

_Love._

“You can’t go,” she whispers.  He stiffens ever so slightly, but she presses her lips to him more, his hair and his head.  She holds him firmly, keeps him where he needs to be.  “You can’t.  I can’t let you go.”  He doesn’t answer, but that touch of fear wans anew.  She closes her eyes.  “Staying together is more important now than it ever has been.”

His voice is wrapped up in a soft sob.  “Nat.”

“We stay together,” she says again, still quietly but with every ounce of her faith in him – in _them_ – behind the words.  “We stay together.”

He doesn’t argue.  She knows he won’t, not after this.  They’re silent as they hold each other and breathe and for once just let themselves rest.

Then there’s a quiet knock at the closed door.  God, they did this, and she didn’t even check to make sure the door’s shut!  Steve moves faster than she does, springing up and grabbing for the gun he left on the bedside table.

There’s no need for that, as it turns out.  Sam’s familiar voice, a little rough with exhaustion, is muffled through the door.  “You guys doing okay?”

Natasha sits up, grimacing at all the aches and twinges.  The room spins just a bit, but she fights through the vertigo and yanks her bra up and her shirt back down.  “Yeah!” she calls in response.  “Yeah, we’re fine.”  She has no idea if Sam heard them.  How could they be so stupid?

Her horror and embarrassment don’t last too long, though.  She glances at Steve, standing to her side with the gun on the door.  He’s still holding it there, still startled, even though it’s safe.  He looks scared and harried and uncertain.

So she stands and goes to him.  She takes the gun.  She puts it back on the table.  He’s shivering, looking ashamed and lost as he fumbles to zip up his pants and get his belt buckled.  She steadies him, rubbing his arms in a show of comfort.  “We’re fine,” she declares again, louder to convince Sam.  To convince Steve, too.  “We’re both fine.”

“Okay.”  Sam hesitates.  “Well, I, uh…  Got some stuff for breakfast.”  Another pause.  “If you guys are into that sort of thing.”

Natasha can’t help a little fond chuckle.  “Sounds great.  Be there in a minute.”  She hears Sam shuffle away outside.  Then she cups Steve’s face, sweeping her thumbs along his beard, staring into his eyes and watching him come back to her.  “We’re okay,” she swears again in a sure voice.  “We are.”  She offers a smile, leans up to kiss him, and slowly he kisses back.  “I’m fine.”

“Nat,” he moans, “I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry!  I–”

“Shhh.  Don’t.  I’m fine,” she says again, searching his eyes, praying he searches hers and sees the truth.  Then she tugs him back to the bed, pulling him down once more.  She lays back and draws him beside her, letting him rest his head on her breast, letting him take a moment.  This is okay.  They’re safe, and alive, and they’re together.  It’s quiet.  Everything is alright.

But then there are sirens.  Just like that.  They’re outside, inexplicable and inexorable, _inevitable_ , wailing in the distance.  Steve shivers and clutches her close.  Holds still.  Holds his breath.  She closes her eyes, not daring to breathe herself.  Is this it?  The moment they let their guard down?  The reason they never stop, never trust fate, never relax.  The second you do, you’re vulnerable, and the worst happens.  Something will tear them apart.

 _No._   Nothing can, now more than ever before.  So she kisses him again and again, silent but sure.  “We’re okay,” she promises in a whisper.  Then she listens.  Hopes and prays she’s not a liar.

She’s not.  The sirens never come any closer.

**THE END**


End file.
